2023-07-21 23:03:00
Maintenance works in one of the lanes of the A-52 motorway in the province of Ourense. Santi M. Amile
In the negotiation that we are making of the debt with the European Commission, this possibility has already been withdrawn, assures the President of the Government
21 jul 2023 . Updated at 11:04 p.m.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, reiterated yesterday that Tolls will not be charged for the use of the Spanish highways. However, the also PSOE candidate for this Sunday’s elections acknowledged that the possibility of charging for the use of roads was incorporated into the document that the Government sent to Brussels in 2021 as an annex to the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. In any case, Sánchez assured that this payment formula to finance the infrastructures has already been withdrawn in the renegotiation of the plan that the Government is now carrying out with the technicians of the European Commission.
It is true that the possibility of charging tolls is included in the recovery and resilience plan, but it is also true that in the negotiation that we are making of the debt with the European Commission, that possibility is already withdrawn, Sánchez explained in an interview on TVE. He said that this change occurs because things have happened since 2021when the document was filed. And he cited the overcoming of the pandemic or the situation caused by the war in Ukraine as examples of arguments to suppress this possibility of payment. The reality is what it is, it is dynamic, and we have changed that position with the European Commission, which is what we are negotiating now, said the President of the Government.
Sánchez said that in the Sustainable Mobility Law project that was approved by the Council of Ministers that possibility is not incorporated. La Voz verified that, indeed, in the text of the law there is no aspect referring to payment for using the highways. Sánchez’s recognition that this payment was proposed in 2021 occurs days after the face to face with Feijoo, in which he himself denied that point to the PP candidate, who yesterday insisted that Sánchez was disavowed by Europe. If it happens to me, I don’t know where to go, he said.
In yesterday’s interview, Pedro Sánchez stressed that now the Spaniards are paying less than before because their government raised the toll on a thousand kilometers of roads. And he criticized the hypocrisy that is aroused by this issue from the political right, recalling that Rajoy did not raise tolls, but rather extended them. Shortly after, the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, ratified Sánchez’s words by assuring that it has been discarded for a long time Implement tolls on highways.
Both Sánchez and Montero had to face the statements of the European Commission’s economic spokesperson, Veerle Nuyts, who on Thursday assured that the document presented by Spain for the Recovery Plan included the commitment to introduce a payment mechanism for the use of roads from 2024. with the maintenance of the roads, which is no longer incorporated into the Sustainable Mobility Law. But, insisted the minister, The Government, at this time, and with the conditions that the transport sector has, has long since ruled out any measure of this type.
La Voz was unable to obtain confirmation from the European Commission yesterday. His economic spokesman Veerle Nuyts, I already stressed on Thursday that I was not going to talk about this matter anymore: We will evaluate this measure when we reach the fifth request for payment from Spain [estamos en la tercera]so it’s not a discussion for today.
The proposal does not appear in the sustainable mobility law
The law that is promulgated will contemplate, at least, the creation of a payment mechanism for the use of state highways, which will start operating from 2024, according to the polluter pays principle. This paragraph included in the annex to the Recovery Plan sent to Brussels by the Government of Spain is the one that has provoked one of the biggest political storms of this electoral campaign, despite the fact that the possibility of paying highway tolls was already raised in 2021, when the Plan was presented in Brussels. And the truth is that the proposal, as Sánchez said, no longer appears in the draft bill.
The proposal stated that the purpose of pay-as-you-go was to internalize the external costs of road transport, creating incentives for greater efficiency in this sector. That part of the text leads some experts to think that the controversial collection of tolls would be intended only for the transport sector.
The Minister of Finance joined this idea, who in her explanations yesterday admitted that payment for use is a common formula in other countries. There is no provision on the part of the Government to use a method that, on the other hand, is used throughout Europe, the minister dropped, who added: It is logical that Europe encourages these measures to be implemented. In Europe they have tolls on motorways Portugal, Norway and Serbia. Other countries use the vignette, which is a payment for time of use. It is applied by Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia and Switzerland.
The controversy over this matter returned to the present day in the middle of the electoral campaign when last week the General Director of Traffic revealed that it would be necessary to apply tolls to maintain the roads, a statement that was denied shortly after by the Minister of Transport.
The Government insists that there will be no tolls despite the fact that Brussels recalls that it promised to put them
Jose Manuel Pan
Rueda accuses Sanchez of lying
Meanwhile, PP officials accused the government of Pedro Sánchez of lying regarding the collection of highway tolls after Brussels recognized on Thursday that the collection of tolls was included in the plan presented by Spain. The president of the Xunta and the PPdeG, Alfonso Rueda, said this Friday in A Guarda that the evidence is growing Pedro Sánchez is lying about the payment mechanism on the highways. Every day we discover a surprise and there is more and more evidence that Pedro Sánchez is lying to us, both he and his ministers, in the face of evidence that has just been confirmed by the EU. Rueda asks the Government to clarify whether this commitment exists.
The general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, said that Brussels has admitted that the Spanish Executive promised to impose tolls on highwaysand added that it is confirmed that he lied face to face, just as he has been doing for five years, when Feijoo showed him the document.
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